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By Kathryn Post
(RNS) — ‘The biggest lesson I had to learn is that God’s lack of an answer to my prayers to change me was an answer, because there was…
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We Have Refused to Listen: Repentance After George Floyd’s Murder
By Chris Hall
The Lord is calling us to sacrificial love, a love where the currency of our words is backed by the gold of our lives.
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There Is No ‘Other’
By Morf Morford
Our options in life were never equal, never fair, and never related to merit or work ethic.
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Two Years Later, Families Are Still Being Separated
By Gena Thomas
When I call you brother, I mean I will fight for your right to life as if you were my brother. When you call me sister, stand up for my…
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Dying to Whiteness, Becoming Anti-Racist
By Nathan Hunt
Whiteness is very real, and it cannot simply be exited by saying so.
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Why Have You Forsaken Us (by The Many)
By The Many
Lament is a form of protest and resistance to anything that destroys life.
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Dear Evangelical Church: A Goodbye
I felt that, short of Heaven, I had found home. Yesterday, I said goodbye.
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White Christians, It’s Time for Us to Repent
Church, White Christians, we are not Israel right now; we are Rome.
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Not Another Sunday: People of Faith Commit to Anti-Racism Work
By RLC Editor
Committing to not letting one more Sunday pass without addressing racism, white supremacy, and police brutality overtly from the pulpit.
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How Much Longer (by Common Hymnal)
Oh brother, lay your weapons down, where the river of justice rolls and all oppression drowns.
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Disembodiment, Embodiment, and Re-Embodiment
Our call as white Christians to love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly is seen in the practices of disembodiment, embodiment, and re-embodiment.
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Bless Me With Anger at White Supremacy
So that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.
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De-Creating Whiteness
By Nathan Hunt
If there is to ever be an end to all this pain, all this alienation and violence, it cannot come through the racial categories we have inherited.
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What Lament Has to Do with Justice
Without lament we don’t have a vehicle for repentance and we can’t move into shalom.
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Trusting Systems With the Irreversible Power of Death
One can only hope that executing people is one of the things we don’t want to return to.
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Clearing the Temple Courts: What Jesus Did About Systemic Injustice
By Corey Farr
Clearing the temple was disruptive and highly controversial.
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The Return of the One Percent
By Morf Morford
In 2020, a new one percent made its way into the public eye: the expendable.
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Racial Trauma, Resilience, and Poetry
This is a tribute to the enduring struggle of intergenerational racial trauma and the extraordinary resilience that has accompanied it.
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Beauty for Weary Souls
By Sue Fulmore
In ways which facts and arguments will never reach us, beauty has a way of bypassing our heads and going straight to our hearts.
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On Protesting: A Theological Reflection for the Privileged (like me)
By Jon Huckins
Jesus disrupted the pseudo-peace to expose it for what it was; a weapon of the state to maintain the status quo.
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#SundaySermon: This Is the Way the World Ends
Today, may our whimper give way to action and compassion, for a new world and a new America.
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Four Thoughts for White Christians
By Levi Yancy
God shows us that we have a responsibility to do right. Also, we have a responsibility to bring people with us on the journey.
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Genuine Freedom Is Love at Work
If freedom does not serve a purpose beyond itself then it is a self-centered trivial thing.
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Rediscipling the White Church
The problem of individualism is that many white people refuse to see ourselves as white.
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I’ve Had Enough of #Solidarity
Are we really in this together?
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Let’s Have Church! (By Loving Our Neighbors)
In seeking eternal life, are we not making choices about who we love as our neighbor?
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Hope Out of Breath: On the Lynching of George Floyd
With his face forcefully scraping the asphalt, George Floyd was also found guilty of impersonating a human being.
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When Killing Is the Priority
By Chris Brown
How does a state that is reportedly 77% Christian choose to carry out the ritualized killing of a likely innocent man in the middle of a pandemic crisis?
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Americans Demand Freedom, But for What?
By Rachel Jones
For the first time in generations, Americans are being asked to consider the collective.
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The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump
By Tony Campolo
The chapter writers—Republicans, Independents and Democrats—deal with hard questions: What does the Bible say about Donald Trump’s character?
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A Picture is Worth 1000 Words
By Alex Gee
If we don’t want two Americas, two societies, then we can’t continue to have two sets of rules.
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Voting for the Common Good
By Doug Pagitt
Encouraging people of faith to bring about a change on election day by making the common good their voting criteria.
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The End of Days? Beware of Becoming a False Prophet
Stop claiming this or that person is the antichrist or the savior of the world.
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Why Racial Reconciliation Isn’t The Answer to Racial Violence
It’s wrong to hold the abused partner equally responsible for reconciling with the abuser
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Bound Liberation: An Interview With ‘Stimulus for All’
By Ryan Kuja
Supporting those who have been barred from COVID-19 financial relief isn’t about charity. It’s about justice.
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The Cross and the Lynching Tree: A Requiem for Ahmaud Arbery
Another live taken. Another public lynching. Another news story. Another act of recorded black death.
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Faith Leaders Mobilize Around Gun Safety in 2020
By RLC Editor
A leading gun control advocacy group has enlisted more than a dozen religious leaders to boost voter turnout this fall.
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In the Era of Ahmaud, What Does Solidarity Have to Do With Jesus?
The reality is, centuries and generations of witnessing Black flesh disemboweled in our streets has socialized our conscience to accept it as normal.
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Stare Racism in the Face
We need to stare racism in the face and boldly change the future to ensure horrors like Arbery’s killing are less likely to happen again.
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Jobs and Judgment in a Time of Pandemic
Some workers are being pressured to return to their jobs. And when they are reluctant to do so their motives are being judged.
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Three Ways Your Church Can Combat the Incarnation of ‘Race’
By Ryan Kuja
Individual churches have a responsibility to become aware of our complicity in that which undermines abundant life for all.
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Statistics Are People Too
By Bill Cayley
But those who will be impacted adversely by a premature return to “normalcy” are not just numbers.
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Mother to Son: Letter to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope
It’s no accident that you are black. You were made black on purpose.
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It’s Complicated: A Different Liturgy for Mother’s Day
You don’t need me to tell you that Mother’s Day is complicated for many. A two-second pause to contemplate the people in your life for whom the holiday might be…
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Watch and Pray: A Message for the Symptomatic
You do not need to plead with God for your survival or submit to this disease, because it is not God’s will that you be sick.
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Fighting for Hope: Brooklyn Coffee Shop Turned Food Pantry
We decided to offer up what we had. Empty tables.
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Why I Am (Not) a Christian
By Corey Farr
I know I love Jesus, I know Jesus changed my life, I know I want to follow him, but I also know there are lots of things people consider “essential”…
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COVID-19, Racism, and the Church
By Tim Taylor
We must address racism in the church in the way our nation has addressed Covid-19: We must acknowledge it directly.
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Crying In the Crisis
That cry, that cry, it makes you dangerous to the forces of injustice.
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Stopping COVID-19’s Third Wave: Our Christian Duty
By Mark Viso
If there’s one thing coronavirus has shown us, it’s that we’re all equally human, equally vulnerable, and universally connected.
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Biblical Justice is the Gospel Manifested
The Bible is a book about justice. Kingdom justice. Biblical justice. And social justice.
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Dear Christians, It’s Time to Take Creation Care Seriously
By Sarah Styf
Respect for the earth isn’t worship; it’s a reflection of our worship of our Creator.
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Comfort in a Time of Communal Suffering
By Wendy Alsup
In its early history, the Church excelled in the very type of medical crisis that we are experiencing today.
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The Moral (and Legal) Case for Emptying NC Prisons.
Now the virus is holding up a mirror to our immorality.
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Together, Apart, Together: Living into Easter
An Imperial crucifixion and tomb could not hold Jesus, nor will a pandemic hold back our love for each other that gives us hope for a better future.
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Living Room Liturgy: A Prayer for Laughter
By Zen Hess
Is there a time for mourning and grief? Yes. But there must also be time for laughter, for dancing, for joy.
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Pandemic, Not Pomp and Circumstance
The class of 2020 was born into a country disfigured by terrorism, and now will be launched into the world during a global pandemic.
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Is This How It All Ends?: Challenging Our Shared Fatalism
By Morf Morford
It just might be how it all ends – or, after a thousand false starts, how it begins.
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The Resurrection will be Live-Streamed
By Eric Minton
I only buy it as actual religious practice if the sound machine of my existence is turned all the way up.
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Nothing Can Separate Us: The Cross and the Prison Cell
Our students are becoming everyday peacemakers because they have come to realize that God is not done with them.
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Amidst Pandemic, the Chance to Experience Easter as the Apostles Did
So let’s experience Easter as the Apostles did: in small groups at home, preparing to share God’s love with the poor and vulnerable.
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Abolish the Death Penalty
If anyone had just cause to kill in self-defense or execute someone for the sake of justice, it was Jesus. Yet . . .
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A Reflection on Maundy Thursday
By Chris Ebling
The story that begins on Maundy Thursday is one of betrayal, denial, pain, and sacrifice. Where were you?
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Maundy Thursday & Easter with Red Letter Christians
By RLC Editor
During this holiest of weeks, we invite you to draw closer to God by joining Red Letter Christians online.
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To the Isolated Addicts (And That Is, All of Us)
It is certain that these challenging times bring to focus and confront the addictions within our culture that we do not like living without.
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Could the Coronavirus be Good for the Church?
What could happen if more churches started experimenting and implementing new forms of ministry like their “life” depended on it?
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When Jesus Social Distanced Himself
When Jesus denied temptation in the wilderness, he showed us by example how to live.
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Todos Cuentan! Everyone Counts!
The 2020 Census gives us a means to help close the economic gaps that haunt so many poor people’s lives.
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Urging Followers of Christ Not to Call COVID-19 the Chinese (Or Wuhan) Virus
By Carl Ruby
Here are four reasons why I urge followers of Christ not to call COVID-19 the “Chinese” or “Wuhan” virus.”
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In the Company of Difference: An Excerpt from I Am Not Your Enemy
In fact, it’s in the presence of difference that hospitality is often most needed.
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How the War on Christmas Became the War on Easter
What I would say to the pastors going to jail right now for defying the quarantine is this: read Romans 13.
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The Renewal of All Things
By Corey Farr
The Jesus of Revelation 21 is “making all things new,” that is, re-newing all things to their original intent in a way which far surpasses that which has come before.…
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The Babylonian Captivity of the Church
By Tony Campolo
When St. John wrote the book of Revelation, he was trying to help the first century Christians understand how to be people of God while living in what was the…
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The Strangest Lent
Easter is not a day in April as much as it is the moment that love wins, and no matter how long Lent lasts this year, resurrection is coming.
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RLC Signs Statement on Anti-Asian Racism in the Time of COVID-19, Join Us
Denouncing the current rise in anti-Asian racism in the United States of America and calling for an immediate end to the xenophobic rhetoric, hate crimes, and violence.
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I’m Not Okay
I’m not sleeping well, friends. All this past week I’ve been receiving thoughtful messages asking how I’m doing. And honestly? I feel like I’m losing, embarrassed of how afraid I…
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Individualism and Selfishness Aren’t ‘Human Nature.’ Cooperation Is.
Humans are not doomed to failure and we can do better. History says we can.
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Letter to Homeland Security: Release Vulnerable Detainees
Sheltering in place may keep us apart, but it does not have to keep us from coming together on behalf of justice.
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The Work We Can Do During Quarantine
What can we do during quarantine to become the sort of people who can build up a better world?
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On the Frontlines: Preventing Coronavirus in Cox’s Bazar
By Alice Zhang
In places like refugee camps, crowded conditions and poor hygiene can increase infection rates.
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Reaching out in a Time of Isolation
By Bob Ekblad
The homeless, those struggling with mental health disorders, and addictions, and others in active recovery are especially vulnerable to COVID-19.
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COVID-19 Prayer Calendar
COVID-19 prayer calendars for the rest of March and the month of April.
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Open Hearts, Closed Doors
The church is not a building. The church is God’s people, wherever we are.
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Don’t Just Wash Your Hands: Scripture, COVID-19, and Mass Incarceration
By Emily Jones
A call for immediate release of vulnerable, incarcerated individuals amid COVID-19 crisis.
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Lessons From the Fog (And This Pandemic)
“I couldn’t help but compare the grounded cloud around me to the world’s persisting and shared experience with the Coronavirus”
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A Modern Adaptation of Isaiah 58 for Lent
By Art Laffin
Our Lent should awaken a sense of social justice.
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The Earth as My Neighbour
By Mick Pope
We are saved with our places and not from them as heaven comes to earth.
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Spiritual Connectedness Amid Social Distancing
A few ideas of how we can cultivate spiritual connectedness even as we practice the ‘social distance.’
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Community In the COVID-19 Crisis
“Praying with you even now that we will have the faith and patience to build the surprising friendships we always need.”
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Myth of the American Dream
“‘And who is my neighbor?’ This verse haunts me more than any other in Scripture.”
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Jesus Didn’t Practice Identity Politics
“Instead of actively mobilizing we become passively immobilized.”
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Beware of Christian Gaslighting
“The danger of Christian gaslighting is that it disguises itself as faith.”
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Love Thy Sick Neighbor: A Liturgy in Times of the Coronavirus
By Kayla Craig
“We may not say it, but we whisper it in our actions: Everyone for themselves.”
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What Would Jesus Post: Social Media and God’s Kingdom
By Sarah Styf
“I would first ask myself, ‘Does this further God’s kingdom?’”
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Cities, Crosses, and Lawsuits
“What might it look like if a city populated primarily by Christians obeyed the commands of Christ?”
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What Simon of Cyrene Can Teach Us About Welcoming Home the Formerly Incarcerated
“Black men and women are not new to the faith and the witness of Simon of Cyrene; and Blacks of faith today can teach us a great deal.”
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A Very Short Epistle to White Evangelicals
By Tony Campolo
“Red Letter Christians believe that the teachings of Jesus, rather than those slogans of politicians, should determine their voting.”
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A Critique of ‘Five Reasons Socialism Is Not Christian’
“At no point in his ministry did Jesus support the interests of the rich and powerful over those of the weak and poor.”